Trio of Busan fest pics to get U.S. release

Global Film Initiative nabs 'Girls,' 'Flickers,' 'Lights'

PARIS — San Francisco-based The Global Film Initiative has acquired three Busan Film Festival players for U.S. release, Bahman Ghobadi-produced “111 Girls,” Zhang Yuan’s “Beijing Flickers” and Suman Ghosh’s “Shyamal Uncle Turns Off the Lights.”

Helmed by first-timers Bijan Zmanpira and Nahid Ghobadi, “111 Girls” is an Iraqi-Kurdish dramedy produced by Abbas Ghazali and Iranian helmer Bahman Ghobadi (“Turtles Can Fly”).

The Fortissimo-repped “Beijing Flickers” explores Beijing’s economic boom through the eyes of a man who becomes homeless after losing his job. Pic, which previously unspooled at Toronto, is produced by

Beijing Century Good-Tiding and China Film Co.

Zhang is best known for directing “Little Red Flowers.”

Meanwhile, ” Shyamal,” which world-preemed at Busan, turns on an old man on a mission to get the local authorities to save electricity by turning off the street lights near his home, which are on day and night. The Indian pic is produced by Arindam Ghosh. A scribe-turned-helmer, Suman Ghosh’s last film was the thriller “Nobel Thief.”

All three pics will screen in the Initiative’s Global Lens 2013 film series, which will bow in January in New York.

“These films are a shining example of what makes Global Lens, and the Busan festival, so unique,” said Santhosh Daniel, the Initiative’s director of programs. “Unusual and inspired filmmaking that draws you into the landscape of imagination. We’re proud to include them in the 10th anniversary of our series.”

The Global Film Initiative is a nonprofit org created in 2002 to support independent cinema from Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

The Global Lenses series is presented annually at the Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian Institution and festivals and theaters in the U.S. and Canada.